The syllabus of B. A. Honours in English Programme at the Sylhet International University, while focusing specifically on English language and literature, brings within its purview the society, culture, history, philosophy and religions of the whole world. The syllabus provides a preliminary grounding in the structure of English language and then purports to guide the student in an exploration of the famous works of the literary geniuses. As an undergraduate syllabus, introduction to both literature and linguistics have been attended to and the requirement of the student’s knowing the local language namely Bengali as well the history and culture of Bangladesh have also been taken care of. The syllabus also equips the student with basic skills needed to be effective in the modern world. A students having successfully completed this syllabus at SIU will not only be well equipped for further studies in English language and literature but also will be able to cope with current business and social problems in an executive capacity.

Jones L., Alexander R., New International Business English (Communication Skills in English for Business Purposes), Cambridge University Press.

NCERT, Knowing about English – A Book of Grammar and Phonology

NCERT, Working with English – A Workbook

ENG 101: Introduction to English Literature I 3 Credits

Poetry:

Shakespeare : “Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s day”;

“My Mistress’s Eyes are Nothing Like theSun.”

Donne : “The Sunne Rising”; “Canonization.”

B. Shelley : “The Ode to the West Wind”

John Keats : “Ode on a Grecian Urn.”, “To Autumn”

Tennyson : “Ulysses”, “The Lotos-Eaters”

Browning : “My Last Duchess”, “Fra Lippo Lippi”

Eliot : “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”

Emily Dickinson : “I like to see it Lap the Miles”; “Because I could not stop for Death”

Books Recommended:

Brooks and R.P. Warren : Understanding Poetry

Shapiro and Beum : A Prosody Handbook

Boulton : Anatomy of Poetry

M.H. Abrams : A Glossary of Literary Terms

X.J. Kennedy : An Introduction to Poetry, Fiction and Drama.

Pranab kanti Deb :An Approach to the study of English Literature

HUM-111 Bangladesh Studies : History and Society of Bangladesh3 Credits

Bangladesh-Geography of Bangladesh-History of Bangladesh: ancient, medieval, British periods, politics of 1930’s and 1940’s, Language movement, 6-point & 11-point programs, liberation war and emergence of Bangladesh and constitutional transformation of the state. Social structure of Bangladesh-Social problems such as repression of women, eve-teasing, urbanization, terrorism, communalism, corruption etc.

Language: Definition and Characteristics; Origins of Language, Society and Culture; History of English Language and the Study of English Language Changes ; Different Branches of Linguistics; Phonetics, Morphology, Syntax and Semantics; Relationship between Linguistics and Literature; Role of Linguistics in Language Teaching ; Second Language Acquisition / Learning; Recent Developments in Linguistics.

The Union of the Great Britain and Ireland to Crimean War: 1800 – 1854

The Victorian Age: 1850 – 1900

Twentieth Century England upto the Second World War

Books Recommended:

Mahajan V. D : History of England.

M. Trevelyan : A Shortened History of England

M. Trevelyan : English Social History

John Thorn, Roger Lockyer, David Smith : A History of England

A.N. Johri : A Social History of England

Ford, Boris : History of English Literature, 1 – 10

ENG 107: Introduction to English Literature II 3 Credits

Prose:

George Orwell : “Shooting an Eelephant”

K. Narayan : The Financial Expert

Jane Austen : Pride and Prejudice

William Golding : Lord of the Flies

William Shakespeare : A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Bernard Shaw : Arms and the Man

Books Recommended:

M. Forster : Aspects of the Novel

B. Millett : Reading Fiction

Boulton : Anatomy of Fiction; Anatomy of Prose

J. Kennedy : An Introduction to Poetry, Fiction and Drama.

Boulton : Anatomy of Drama

T. Jones : Studying Drama, An Introduction

I. Choudhury : Kabya Totto (Bangla Translation of Poetics)

ENG 204: Language Skills: Reading and Writing 3 Credits

Argument and Persuasion – Students will learn to define terms, develop a thesis statement, structure an argument, perform induction and deduction, refute opposing arguments, and examine the different strategies of persuasion. Reader’s Theater, Jigsaw Reading.

Developing a Sense of Mechanics- Students will focus on word choice, sentence variety, and paragraph structure.

Translation – Students will translate passage from Bangla into English.

Reading short stories, novels, dramas and poetry.

Writing the Research Paper – Students will learn how to use library sources, take notes from reading, use quotations, document sources, use footnotes. Intensive and Extensive Reading; Critical Analysis and Interpretation of Texts. Essays ; Report Writing; Book Reviews ; Research Papers.

Phonetics- Articulatory and acoustic phonetics; the organs of speech; IPA symbols; description of consonants and vowels of different languages; contrastive study of English and Bengali speech sounds; cardinal vowels; English short vowels, long vowels and diphthongs; English plosives, fricatives, affricates and nasals.

Form of government in Bangladesh – History of relevant amendments of constitution leading to parliamentary form of government – Relationship among Parliament, Executive and Judiciary in Bangladesh –Powers of President and Prime minister– Separation of Judiciary from Executive – Parliamentary committees – Role of Opposition – Female seats in parliament – Concept of caretaker government – Election and Election Commission – Role of bureaucracy in Bangladesh – Local governments, their present position and expected role – Political parties in Bangladesh – Manifestoes of major parties – Pluralistic democracy.

Books Recommended:

Harold J. Laski: The State in Theory and Practice.

Harole J. Laski: A Grammar of Politics.

Judd Harmon: Political Thought from Plato to the Present.

I. J. Rosenthal: Political Thought in Medieval Islam

Majid Khadduri: Political Trends in the Arab World.

David Spitz: Political Theory and Social Change (9th)

Morris Janowitz: The Military in the Political Development of New Nation.

This paper aims at familiarizing students with the theories and practices of English language teaching with a view to preparing them to be effective language teachers. This paper will include the following:

Approaches, Methods and Techniques in ELT: History of ELT Grammar-Translation Method, Direct Method, Audio-Lingual Method, Chomskyan, Revolution and Contemporary Methods, The Communicative Approach and the Natural Approach. Teaching and Testing the Four Skills: Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing.

Verb: Major verb classes-time, tense and the verb. Sequence of Tenses-Conditional.

Adverbs: Characteristics of the adverb – the adverb as a clause, element-the adverb and other word classes-syntactic functions of adverbs – correspondence between adjectives and adverbs – comparison of adjectives and adverbs.

Adjectives: Characteristics of the adjective – central and peripheral adjectives – the adjective in relation to other word classes – syntactic function of adjectives – syntactic and semantic sub-classification of adjectives.

Modern English Syntax, Emphasis and Standard English, other social and regional dialects; work with various grammars and dictionaries.

Morphology: What is meant by Morphology? Types of Morphology-Morphemes-Morphs-Allomorphs-Phonological and Morphological Conditioning – Bloomfieldian concept of Morpheme and its subsequent modification-Morphological Processes.

Traditional Concepts: Words Problems in defining a word-Problems in classification of words, inflection and syntax, Sentence, Clause and Phrase.